JURIED SHOWCASE ARTISTS

2025 PAD SHOWCASE ARTISTS

Kiran Ahluwalia

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BIRCKHEAD

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Christal Brown / INSPIRIT

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DuPont Brass

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Dan Froot & Company

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Ize Trio

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La Mezcla

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Quetzal

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Roopa in Flux

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Sounds of April & Randall

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Versa-Style Street Dance Company

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2023 ARTISTS

2022 ARTISTS

2024 ARTISTS

2025 Juried Showcase Artists

7NMS Marjani Forte-Saunders Everett Saunders

Operating in CA and NY, 7NMS is the public emergence of Marjani and Everett as a collaborative team, radically engaging art as a medium of elevation, healing, and futurity.

Marjani is a 2019 FCA Fellowship awardee, a three-time Bessie Award winner, and an inaugural recipient of the Jerome Hill, Dance/USA, and Urban Bush Women Choreographic Center Fellowships.

Everett is the composer and thought partner behind the award-winning and internationally touring production Memoirs of a... Unicorn, and a two-time New Music USA Awardee. His recent work includes composer/sound designer credits on Jaamil Kosoko’s Chameleon, Mayfield brooks’ Whale Fall, and Urban Bush Women’s Hair & Other Stories (2018).

With seven award-winning projects in ten years, 7NMS embodies a strong commitment to the Black radical imagination. Their project PROPHET is a recipient of the 2020 MAP Fund, a 2020 New Music USA Award, and the 2021 National Dance Project Production and Touring Grant.

Image credit: Angel Origgi

Astral Mixtape

Astral Mixtape fuses classical instrumentation with electronics to craft music that is personal, captivating, and boldly original. With an unconventional ensemble of two violins, cello, and keyboards, the group is reimagining chamber music for the 21st century, blurring the boundaries between composer, arranger, and performer. Their work draws from a broad spectrum of influences, synthesizing the exuberance of pop, the improvisational spirit of jazz, and the adventurous edge of contemporary music into a sound that is unmistakably their own.

Winners of the 2023 Astral Artists National Auditions and the 2024 Beverly Hills National Auditions, Astral Mixtape brings their genre-defying performances to stages across North America. Recent engagements include Banff Centre’s Martha Greenham Theater (AB), the Eagles Theatre (IN), Greystone Mansion (CA), Hugh’s Room (ON), World Cafe Live (PA), Hotel Café (CA), The 1905 (OR), and Rockwood Music Hall (NYC).

Image credit: Mateo Nikolav

Blue13 Dance Company

Blue13 Dance Company is an American dance ensemble based in Los Angeles, California. For over 20 years, Blue13 has connected diverse audiences through the power of aesthetically and culturally daring dance. They have taken their highly energetic and theatrical modern dance style throughout the US and abroad—a style inspired, in part, by the classical and cultural art forms of the Indian subcontinent.

A first-generation South Asian American, Blue13’s Artistic Director, Achinta S. McDaniel, creates art at the intersection of diaspora and disruption. Her work is as rebellious and unconventional as its architect, conveying the breadth and depth of her artistry through rhythm, joy, precision, humor, and emotion.

Image credit: Slad

Calder Quartet

Hailed as “Superb” and “imaginative, skillful creators” by The New York Times, the Calder Quartet captivates audiences by exploring a broad spectrum of repertoire, always striving to fulfill the composer’s vision in their performances. The group's distinctive artistry is exemplified by a musical curiosity brought to everything they perform, leading them to be called “one of America’s most satisfying and most enterprising quartets.” (Los Angeles Times)

Winners of the prestigious 2014 Avery Fisher Career Grant, they are widely known for the discovery, commissioning, recording, and mentoring of some of today’s best emerging composers. In addition to performances of the complete Beethoven and Bartók quartets, the Calder Quartet’s dedication to commissioning new works has given rise to premieres of dozens of string quartets by both established and up-and-coming composers, including Peter Eötvös, Andrew Norman, Christopher Rouse, Ted Hearne, and Christopher Cerrone.

Image: courtesy of the artist

Dayton Contemporary Dance Company

Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, was founded in 1968 to create performance opportunities for African American dancers. Since its founding by Jeraldyne Blunden, DCDC continues to be at the forefront of the Black contemporary/modern dance movement.

DCDC is known for its extraordinary artistic expression, precision, and athleticism. The company receives critical acclaim for its exceptional performances of classic works by African American choreographers, and for its embrace of contemporary dance creators. This Dayton, Ohio dance company, the largest in a state renowned for modern dance, is celebrated at home and abroad. DCDC believes that dance is for everyone, as an essential mission goal. With its Community Engagement activities DCDC encourages participants to experience the thrill of movement through hands on instruction and choreography workshops.

Image credit: Ron Valle

Delirium Musicum

Delirium Musicum is a self-conducted chamber orchestra that pulses with ferocious passion and infuses L.A.'s crackling energy into every performance, disrupting expectations and redefining “classical” music as the new red-hot concert experience.

A 21st-century musical phenomenon, Delirium Musicum breathes fire into masterworks from the Baroque to the music of tomorrow, delivering a concert experience that radiates with fierce and unapologetic creative fervor.

Led by violinist and Artistic Director Etienne Gara, Delirium Musicum performances grab hold of concert-goers' emotions and don't let go. Expect an incandescent, visceral experience as you enjoy Delirium Musicum's eclectic artists making their musical magic.

Image credit: Peter Hastings

Extra Ancestral

Extra Ancestral unifies music, dance, visual arts, and community engagement as forms of empowerment to reduce the trans-generational trauma that exists in communities of color.

The ensemble's revolutionary performances demonstrate Black survival, invoking the struggle and resistance of 500 years of forced transatlantic passages between West Africa and the Americas. Historically, music and dance have been considered the oldest forms of medicine, and Extra Ancestral seeks to combine traditions of healing through their performances to elevate and empower communities of color.

Their vision manifests in performance productions, dance classes, workshops, and music education with artists and specialists from across the African Diaspora.

Image: courtesy of the artist

Grupo Bella

Grupo Bella is a multi-faceted ensemble from the Los Angeles area. Grupo Bella is quickly becoming known for their excellent musicianship and diverse repertoire. With their use of traditional mariachi instrumentation, they have their roots in the mariachi genre, while also spanning the music of many different cultures, decades, and various Latin American and American styles.

Grupo Bella is passionate about student and community outreach, having traveled extensively giving music workshops about the history and cultural significance of folk music from the different regions in Mexico and Latin America. It’s Grupo Bella’s hope this will keep the culture alive and inspire future generations to help the music continue to grow and thrive. The group founder and musical director, Vanessa Ramirez, is an accomplished singer, GRAMMY Award-winning vocalist and GRAMMY-nominated composer.

Image: courtesy of the artist

Guy Mendilow Ensemble & Regie Gibson

Guy Mendilow Ensemble (GME) produces live, original multimedia performances and thoughtful residencies. Through riveting scores, narration blending memoir and poetry, and theatrical projections, GME explores real-world tales of choices people make in times of personal or societal change, especially unexpected grace in upheaval.

Led by composer/educator/facilitator Guy Mendilow, GME is a cutting-edge collaboration of international musicians, composers, visual artists, writers and theatrical designers from all over the world.

GME specializes in collaborative residencies and facilitating moving experiences for people to engage with each other’s stories in ways that are dignified and alive. GME’s interdisciplinary team combines excellence in crafting, directing and performing multidisciplinary productions with educational pedagogy and thoughtful gathering design. These projects are not about agreement. But they are about understanding, and being understood.

Image credit: Elizabeth Friar Photography

Jesús Muñoz Flamenco

Jesús Muñoz Flamenco has presented performances across the U.S., Canada, Spain, and Mexico. Muñoz is a PAD Artist in 2024 and represented WAA and his company at WOMEX last fall. Since its inception in 2010, the company has been on over 2,000 stages, introduced Flamenco to over 60,000 people through artist residencies, and created eight original full concerts whose quality of work has reached world-class stature and reputation with collaboration from prominent artists.

Jesús Muñoz Flamenco is additionally noted for creating retrospective pieces that build upon primitive rhythms rarely performed in Flamenco, bringing this ancient message of human perseverance to a new generation. Because of the production process and quality, some of Muñoz’s work is among the few companies cited by the Ministry of Culture in Madrid, Spain.

Image credit: Richard Malcom

Jlin and Third Coast Percussion

Jlin (Jerrilynn Pa!on) has quickly become one of the most distinctive composers in America and one of the most inﬂuential women in electronic music. Jlin’s thrilling, emotional, and multidimensional compositions have earned her praise as “one of the most forward-thinking contemporary composers in any genre” (Pitchfork) and a 2023 United States Artist award. She was a 2023 Pulitzer Prize nominee for Perspectives – originally commissioned and performed by Third Coast Percussion. Her mini-album Perspective, featuring the original electronic versions of the suite, was released to critical acclaim on Planet Mu 2023.

Jlin and Third Coast Percussion are united by a passion for stretching our respective musical practices into uncharted territory. Jlin’s music first came out of EDM and Chicago footwork, and TCP’s training and background is in western classical music, but both artists have found inspiration and fruitful collaboration far outside of their home base—including with each other.

Image credit: Saverio Truglia

Kiran Ahluwalia

Kiran Ahluwalia is a modern exponent of the great vocal traditions of India and Pakistan which she honors yet departs from in masterful, personal ways. Her original compositions embody the essence of Indian music while embracing influences from West African Blues and Jazz. With her 6-piece group of electric guitar, accordion, organ, tabla, electric bass and drum kit, Ahluwalia creates boundary-breaking songs that invite us to explore the human condition, transcending the self by losing ourselves in a trance of groove and melody.

Image credit: Ryan Buchanan

Vanessa Sanchez y La Mezcla

La Mezcla is a polyrhythmic, San Francisco-based dance and music ensemble rooted in Chicana, Latina and Indigenous traditions and social justice. Founded in 2015 by Dance/USA and Rainin 2025 Arts Fellow Vanessa Sanchez, their work brings together Tap dance, Son Jarocho and Afro-Caribbean rhythms to bring the often unseen histories and experiences of communities of color to stages, streets and fields. Their work has toured internationally to venues including Jacob’s Pillow, the Lincoln Center and Festival Cervantino in Mexico, and has been featured in Dance Magazine and NEA’s American Artscape Magazine.

Image credit: Dominique Washington

2024 PAD SHOWCASE ARTISTS

10 artists/ensembles were selected for the 2023 - 24 PAD Showcase program cycle. View their 15-minute showcase videos and learn more about their work.